Tap Dancing with Andy Warhol • a blog by students in #wrtf14 at Rowan University

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

For my photo essay assignment, the topic I chose to explore through photographs is patriotism. Patriotism is the cultural attachment to one’s homeland or country. I want to capture images that display the pride people have for being American and living in this country. The main point I want my essay to make is how important it is to show respect of our country and pay tribute to those who sacrifice their lives so we can live ours freely.

I’m considering many different subjects to portray the point I want to get across. The first image I want to capture are flags. In my hometown of Hasbrouck Heights, people have the American flag hanging up outside of their house. Another option would be a billboard promoting patriotism or something about joining the military. I have seen many of these driving down the highways near my town. I also have noticed many different signs that say “pay tribute”, “god bless America”, or something along those lines. I would also like to capture that for my photo essay to add to the sense of pride my images will show.

Going off of that, I want my photo essay to produce a feeling of pride and even have people feel thankful to live in the country we do. I want people to see the images I have captured and feel grateful, and remember how lucky we are. Sometimes, I feel as though we take what we have for granted, and these images will remind us that others do not have all that we do. I want these images to inspire people to show love for their country, whether it’s America or another nation.

The technology I will be using to capture these images will be my iPhone camera. I have had an iPhone for almost three years now, and am very experienced and familiar with using the camera. I know how to focus in on certain objects of the image as well as using other features such as putting a filter on the image and playing around with the color, zooming in and out, and making a panoramic image. I will use a free iPhone application called Avairy. This will allow me to choose from multiple filters to put on an image, and put my own twist on it.